Saturday, September 23, 2006

I am a bit disappointed that it's so hard to get attention for Retainer Girl. I think there's an audience for it out there, but it's hard to connect to it. Of course I should be doing more, too. Like figuring out how to make friends at myspace! I still haven't done much on the page there....

I did get an e-mail from one reader and that was thrilling because she sounded like exactly the kind of person I was writing the book for and I was so glad to hear she liked it so much. (Thanks B.!)

Love and Braces is coming along very well, and now that I am getting near the end I have to be careful not to rush it. It's turned out to be even longer than I expected - I just hope that doesn't make it too much more expensive.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

When you publish your book at Lulu you can also submit it to Google book search, which is where they copy the whole book making it easier for people to search it or check out parts of it. It took a long time, but Retainer Girl is now part of it: here.

One of the cool things is that you can now "Search in this book", so readers can check out whatever they want, like if they want to see whether there's anything about headgear or where the parts in the waiting room are or absolutely anything. And you can check out even more sample pages than at Lulu or Intraoral Press.

I'm a bit worried that readers will just check out the available pages and then not bother with the book at all, but I think more people will see that it really is worth getting. Here they really can see that it is a real book and everything.

But I don't know how many people will use this. The only reason I even know about this part of Google is because of Lulu, and I've only used it when I've gone to check whether Retainer Girl is available yet....

Amazon also scans the whole book in if you send it to them, and then you can search and get all sorts of other informatiom. I haven't sent in Retainer Girl yet. I think I'll wait until Love and Braces is ready too.

(And at least one person finally bought a copy of Retainer Girl at the American Amazon!)

The original Kicking and Screaming (not the new soccer movie) is now out on DVD (Amazon). I remember seeing it when it came out, a few years after I graduated from college and I loved it because it was so much my generation and showed a lot of life-decisions and discussions like the ones I had just been through. But one other reason it was so memorable was because Olivia d'Abo was a retainer girl in it, which I thought was a nice touch too! I'll probably get it, though I wonder if I'll still be able to relate. To the retainer girl - yes! (she was the strongest person in the film, I think), but I'm not sure about the rest.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Back again! Spending the long weekend with everyone back home would have been nice, but it's impossible, and I did manage to see everybody before I left (and the weather forecast wasn't great either) so I don't feel too bad. It's just that there's so much to jump right into back here!

I'm a bit disappointed that Retainer Girl didn't do better while I was away. I am surprised that there aren't more people who are curious about it. And I don't have time to do much to publicize it right now. Not that I have any great new ideas how to do that anyway....

I thought of looking up my old orthodontist in Michigan and giving him a copy. He's still working but it's been more than twenty years and I chickened out. I'd sort of like to know what he thinks, but he'd probably have too many questions.

At least Love and Braces is coming along really well, except that it's turning out to be a lot longer than I expected. Getting near the end stretch, but it might reach close to 250 pages. Unless I really cut a lot, but I'm not sure I can or want to.

I hope that with school and college starting all over the place more students will be looking for a book about having braces and will find out about Retainer Girl! And that I find the time to finish Love and Braces soon!